Page 15 of The Falcon and the Foe

“I’m careful.” He shrugged.

I doubted that. The back of his phone was covered in stickers that overlapped on each other. It was like the wall of a vintage record store.

“Unlock it.”

“You know, this is very intimate, giving someone access to my phone. Not even my best friends have access.” He punched in his passcode.

I pulled up the calendar app. “It’s blank. Don’t you use a scheduling app to keep track of your appointments and meetings?”

Cal tapped his head.

“You keep it all in your head?”

“It works for me.”

“It actually doesn’t because you’re late all the time.”

Before he could launch into another defense, I programmed the scout meeting in his phone with two reminders.

“There.” I shoved the phone back into his hand, and when our fingers touched, the contact made me gulp back something for a second—a splash of lust in my bone-dry sexual desert.

“Happy?” he asked.

“Elated.”

He breathed an overly dramatic sigh that fluttered the hairs of his beard. “I’m working on getting a permanent shift in my schedule so I can attend these meetings, and so we’ll be here twenty minutes early,” he said with a sarcastic smile as if being early was the dorky equivalent of wearing a pocket protector and taped-up glasses in a 1950s high school.

Now that his tardiness had been addressed, I took a step back and studied the awful state of his scout leader uniform. The shirt was wrinkled and untucked, hanging over a pair of jeans. His badges were pinned to the wrong side of his chest, and his kerchief was tied around his neck like a southern belle. It was as if he deliberately set out to wear every piece of Falcons clothing the wrong way.

“You’re giving me that look again.”

“What look?” I asked.

“That horrified look like you’re not sure whether you should scream or vomit.”

I couldn’t control my face, it seemed. “Your uniform,” I said, my words dripping with barely contained disgust.

“What’s wrong with it?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Everything.”

“I was—”

“In a rush.”

He attempted to smooth out the wrinkles over his barrel chest and stomach; it only made things worse. I glanced through the window into the meeting room, and Josh’s uniform also had the same wrinkles and messy appearance. He kept his head down and tried to tie the kerchief the same as the other Falcons. My heart broke for him.

“Listen, Cal. You will show up on time for all future meetings with the uniform pressed and worn correctly. As a scout leader, you are supposed to be setting an example for these kids. They don’t care how late your shift ended or how much stuff you’re juggling. If you don’t take this seriously, then they won’t.”

The hard edge in my voice seemed to click with him, as he didn’t spit out any crude retorts—just a single head nod.

“Good.”

I re-entered the meeting room and clapped twice to get the kids’ attention. “We were watching you from outside. I’m proud of you. Respectful, patient.” I tensed, waiting for a slick comment from my co-captain. Again, just a head nod. I stumbled for a beat. It felt weird not to have a comeback from him.

“So, are we ready for tonight’s activity? I’m splitting everyone into pairs. For the first half, one of you will play the biking victim, and the other will be the scout who patches them up. I’ll hand out first aid kits. But first, let me demonstrate the proper way to disinfect and diagnose an injury, then how to properly bandage the wound.”

I picked up a box full of first aid kits and placed it on the table in front. Cal peeked his head inside at the contents.

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